Development Intent
AtlasHackneyOfficersLouise Prew
Case officer · Hackney Planning

Louise Prew.

Last recorded decision Oct 2023 — no decisions in this record since

A case officer at Hackney with an approval rate of 85% across 145 decided planning applications, spanning 21 wards.[1] Decision speed and appeal performance publish when decision notices are ingested.

Planning officer145 decisions85% approvalSave
Hackney · ward map
Approval rate — by ward
Lower ~68%
Higher ~90%
ShowingAll years · subscriber →across all years on record — a period re-scopes the headline figures and the trend
At a glanceEach metric links to the investigation behind it
All investigations →
145
Applications
2020–23
Approval rate over time — tougher or softer 🔒Dashed line = London average
avg 81%95%202084%202178%202267%2023100%2024
Approval-rate trend is subscriber dataSubscribe to see the trend →
What they decide — by application type
How they compareVersus peers
Approval rate85% · 15th of 52
higher is betterdashed = London avg
Decision time · publishes with decision notices
in development
Appeal overturn · publishes with decision notices
in development
How this officer decides — from their own reports126 officer reports parsed
22%
Approves despite concerns
of approvals record a documented reservation
4%
Negotiated approvals
approvals mentioning revisions/amendments
1%
"On balance" reports
reports using explicit balancing language
82%
Bespoke reasoning
of report text written for the case, not recited
What they write about — vs Hackney's average officer

Topic mentions per 1,000 words of their own report text (boilerplate stripped), indexed against all parsed Hackney reports. Attention, not stance.

Transport & parking
1.53× borough avg
Outlook & amenity
1.11× borough avg
Flooding & drainage
1.1× borough avg
Noise & disturbance
0.96× borough avg
Precedent & consistency
0.88× borough avg

Mark = borough average (1×). Bar capped at 2×.

How they reason — coded from their reports

Prew's town-centre change-of-use cases work through the specific DM9 frontage-percentage test numerically (counting current retail units in the frontage), and her design sections separately state that a change-of-use application with NO physical alterations raises no design issue at all, rather than assessing design generically regardless.

Observable habits

· counts the actual number/percentage of retail units in a shopping frontage against the DM9 threshold rather than a general town-centre statement

· explicitly states when a change-of-use application involves no external alterations and therefore raises no design consideration at all

· notes when a use will make use of an EXISTING approved facility (e.g. a waste store) from a related permission rather than requiring a new one

What their reports consistently look for

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: the actual count/percentage of retail units within a designated shopping frontage measured against the DM9 threshold

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a change-of-use application proposes any external alterations at all — if none, design is stated as a non-issue rather than assessed generically

· what this officer's reports consistently look for: whether a proposal can rely on an existing approved facility from a related permission rather than needing a fresh one

Assigned Louise Prew on a live case?What they pay attention to, how they reason, and what their reports consistently look for — so you can address it before they raise it.Subscribe to unlock →
In their own words

DM9 requires that proposals to change the use of ground floor Class A1 retail unit will not be permitted where the proportion of A1 units in the secondary shopping frontages would fall below 50% of planning units.

2020/0166

This change of use application does not propose any alterations to the building. Therefore the development is acceptable in design terms as it will not have an adverse impact on the building or wider area

2020/0166

No. 76 is part of a wider site (76-80) which was granted planning permission in 2012. The unit will make use of the waste store within the unit to the north as per this planning permission.

2020/0166

Measured from 126 published Hackney officer reports written by this officer, with recited policy boilerplate stripped before any counting. These describe how this officer works and writes — they are not outcome predictions. Every quote is from a named public report.

Policy playbook — what this officer cites[3]

The policies this officer cites most in their own reports — times cited across 126 parsed reports. Whether refusals citing each survive appeal isn't traced per policy yet.

LP1Part A will be applied having regard to the scale and location of the
47 times cited
LP2Development and Amenity
45 times cited
LP3Designated Heritage Assets
42 times cited
D3Allocation: Mixed-use including residential
38 times cited
HC1Allocation: Mixed use
34 times cited
LP54Overheating and Adapting to Climate Change
27 times cited
LP55Mitigating Climate Change
26 times cited
LP17Housing Design
20 times cited
Which policies this officer leans on is subscriber intelligenceSubscribe to unlock →
Decisions by ward

Where this officer's caseload concentrates, 2020–23.[1] Click the map above to focus this page on a ward, or a row to open the ward.

Recent applications
Address
Reference
Type
Outcome
Date
2021/1489
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2024-07-12
2020/3661
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2023-08-04
2021/1489
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2024-07-12
2020/3661
Full Planning Permission
Approved
2023-08-04
Full application history locked
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Consultants approved most— subscriber data
1. SAM Planning Services Ltd
2. Firstplan
3. Redwoods Projects Ltd
4. Nett Assets Limited
At a glance
OfficerLouise Prew
BoroughHackney
RolePlanning officer
Experience
Applications145 (2020–23)
Approval rate85%
London approval avg81%
Who decides here
GovernmentMayor of LondonCouncilCommitteeOfficersDecisionsApplicantsInspectorate
Related investigations
When committees overrule officers like this one →
How often members depart from officer recommendations, and how those overrides fare at appeal.
How much gets decided without a committee →
The delegated share by borough and officer — where the real power over decisions sits.
Sources & method
  1. [1]Applications decided, approval rate, per-year trend and ward breakdown — London Borough of Hackney planning register and published decision notices, 2020–23. · methodology
  2. [2]Appeal overturn and decision-time benchmarks — Planning Inspectorate (PINS) appeal decisions and application date pairs; not yet computed per officer, shown as a dash until they are. · PINS appeals casework
  3. [3]Condition load — mean effective conditions attached to Hackney decision notices (grant/split), parsed from the published notice text; a borough figure, not yet split per case officer.
  4. [4]"How this officer decides", the policy playbook and all quotes — parsed from 126 published Hackney officer reports written by this officer, recited policy boilerplate stripped before counting; disposition text coded from their own reasoning with every quote machine-verified verbatim. Descriptive of how they work — not outcome predictions.
Methodology is published in full so every number is traceable to its primary source.